Poll gap narrows between major parties over summer

Labor has begun the year with a bounce in the polls, despite abandoning its surplus promise just before Christmas. The latest Newspoll suggests Labor's primary vote has risen by six points - more than the margin of error - since early December, to 38. The Coalition's primary vote stands at 44. However, the Coalition would still win an election if held today, with its two-party preferred vote at 51 points and Labor's at 49.

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TONY EASTLEY: Labor's decision to ditch its surplus promise doesn't appear to have hurt it electorally. The latest Newspoll shows a six point rise in Labor's primary vote to 38, while the Coalition's is down two points - within the margin of error - to 44.

But although the gap between the two major parties has narrowed, the Government still remains on shaky ground. The poll suggests the Coalition would still win an election if called today.

On a two-party preferred basis, Labor stands at 49 points and the Coalition on 51.

Lexi Metherell has been speaking to the chief executive of Newspoll, Martin O'Shannessy.

LEXI METHERELL: Martin O'Shannessy, on a two-party preferred basis, Labor has risen three points since early December to 49 points. The Coalition is down to 51 points. That's just on the margin of error. Is that a significant result?

MARTIN O'SHANNESSY: It is but it's only a mirror of what we saw through the last quarter of last year. As you know, from mid-year, Labor was on the improve and we've seen them with you know two party votes in the 49 range half a dozen times in the last quarter of last year.

So what we think happened is that some of the ordure that the Prime Minister faced, or that the Labor Party faced over the Ashby case, over the AWU, may have been holding back the Labor vote but if we look at this number it's closer to the trend that was established, you know, from July but mainly during September, October, November.

LEXI METHERELL: It's been summer; people have been on holidays since their last poll was taken. How much do you think that the announcement over the surplus, Labor ditching its surplus promise, the royal commission announcement, Tony Abbot fighting fires - how much has that factored into this latest poll?

MARTIN O'SHANNESSY: I don't think any of the big announcements will have hurt Labor and especially as the big negatives around the Prime Minister's personal situation quite thoroughly went away, you know, before the Christmas break.

The ditching the surplus as an idea - clearly most people from our polls didn't think the surplus was achievable and really didn't think it was important. So you know I don't think that's hurt either and certainly Labor's got away with that without any damage at all, I would say.

LEXI METHERELL: This comes after a four point drop for Labor from November to December, effectively reversing that drop in the primary vote from November to December. Was that a rogue drop in the polls?

MARTIN O'SHANNESSY: Oh, there's no such thing as a rogue poll, Lexi. The poll to poll variation we expect just from normal sampling error can be as high as 4 per cent, and the average can be two.

So you know, you look at those numbers, you think the movement of one more than the poll to poll average sampling error.

So no, it's pretty clear that there was vote going away from Labor - parked over in the minor parties we think. If you look at the numbers, 11 and 11 for Greens and others and not a big change for the Coalition, possibly sitting around those issues that Labor was facing at the last month of the year - and those issues of course all went away, fell apart, in the last month of the year and now we're back on trend, effectively.

We're heading into the election year and we can expect the numbers to stay pretty close from here on in.

LEXI METHERELL: So Labor's primary vote is now the highest since the last election. How happy should it be with this result and how concerned should the Coalition be?

MARTIN O'SHANNESSY: I think the Labor Party should be comparing itself to where they were when the vote was 26 and thinking that they've done a pretty good job of getting the vote back and if you ascribe to the theory that polls bounce around, you know, a 10 or 12 point movement in our poll - and in other polls such as Neilsen - very clear that Labor's on the way back.

Now we're down to the campaign and it will come down to who wins the campaign over the next eight months.

LEXI METHERELL: The Coalition would still win if an election was held today, though.

MARTIN O'SHANNESSY: Absolutely. They'd gain a significant number of seats and have a, you know, workable majority, no trouble.